UK baseball’s Trey Pooser, ‘one of the best pitchers … no one knows about,’ dominant again

On the list of moments that define a historic Kentucky baseball season, Trey Pooser’s response to his own fifth-inning miscue in the NCAA Tournament super regional opener against Oregon State has to rank highly.

In an otherwise near-flawless performance, Pooser hit the leadoff batter to open the fifth then sailed a throw on what could have been a double-play grounder into center field. Suddenly Oregon State had two on and no out with Kentucky clinging to a 1-0 lead.

But Pooser was not fazed.

After Oregon State failed to execute a sacrifice bunt, he struck out No. 9 hitter Tanner Smith. Pooser refused to give into superstar second baseman Travis Bazzana, the No. 1-ranked 2024 MLB draft prospect according to MLB.com, with a five-pitch walk to load the bases.

A strikeout of .400-hitter Micah McDowell followed before Pooser induced a groundout to third base from No. 3 hitter Gavin Turley to escape the jam unscathed.

“That’s what a Kentucky pitcher looks like,” second baseman Émilien Pitre said after Kentucky’s 10-0 win Saturday at Kentucky Proud Park. “It attacks, works really fast, and has a really slow heartbeat on the mound. That’s what we teach here.”

Pooser finished the night with eight strikeouts and four walks in seven scoreless innings. He allowed just one hit, cementing his status as Kentucky’s ace in a season that started without a spot in the Wildcats’ weekend rotation.

In three starts since the end of the regular season, Pooser has surrendered just one run in 19 innings against Arkansas, Illinois and Oregon State.

So, what has changed for the former College of Charleston pitcher who began the season as a piggy-back reliever behind Friday starter Travis Smith?

“I don’t know,” Pooser said. “I feel like I’ve been trying to do the same thing. It’s just worked out better for me, honestly. That’s pretty much it. I’ve just been doing the same thing I’ve been trying to do all season, and it’s just worked out a lot better for me this postseason.”

As reporters peppered Pooser with questions about arguably the most important pitching performance in Kentucky baseball history to date, he was steadfast in his refusal to shower praise on himself.

Meanwhile Pitre and first baseman Ryan Nicholson, who helped break the game open in a seven-run seventh inning with his 21st home run of the season, could only chuckle as Pooser shrugged off all attempts at praise.

“He is like one of the best pitchers in the country that nobody knows about,” Nicholson said. “He goes out there and he shoves, and he doesn’t really talk about it. He’s not a boastful guy. He’s all about the team.”

UK coach Nick Mingione agreed with that assessment before admitting he did not foresee a 7-1 record for Pooser when an injury to Smith moved him into the rotation in the second SEC series of the season.

But Mingione was confident in Pooser’s ability enough to arrange the piggy-back plan on Friday nights early in the season in an effort to limit early innings for both Smith and Pooser.

“But boy, has he taken an unbelievable opportunity and just ran with it,” Mingione said.

Entering the NCAA Tournament, Kentucky’s diverse offensive attack garnered most of the praise with questions about the Wildcats’ ultimate ceiling centering around the pitching staff despite a No. 2 overall seed. Through four tournament games, those concerns have largely been silenced thanks to stellar starts from Pooser and Mason Moore, who enters Sunday’s second game with 20 1/3 scoreless NCAA Tournament innings in his career.

Kentucky has now shutout teams in its last two games that had not been shutout previously all season.

Neither Pooser nor Moore has garnered the same draft hype as Oregon State ace Aiden May, a top-100 prospect who surrendered three runs in five innings Saturday. While giving credit to Pooser for locating three pitches throughout the night, Oregon State coach Mitch Canham and shortstop Elijah Hanline, the only player to record a hit for the Beavers in the opener, sounded perplexed at his success.

“I don’t think it was necessarily strikeout stuff that we were facing tonight,” Canham said. “We should have put a lot more balls in play.”

Kentucky will take that skepticism as long as Pooser continues to post results.

With one more victory against Oregon State, Pooser would be in line to pitch the College World Series opener. Strikeout stuff or not, Mingione and company know he has the mentality to thrive in that situation.

“He’s so unselfish,” Mingione said. “He does nothing to draw attention to himself. All he does is make pitch after pitch. … When something doesn’t go your way, the guy just sits there and just smiles, and he shakes his head and he goes on to the next thing.

“He’s exactly what a UK pitcher looks like, and he executes at a super high level.”

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